


Death Doesn't Wait

by Anonymous_Introvert78



Series: NCT Hurt/Comfort [7]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Coma, Fights Between Members, Here we go, Hospitals, I really went for this, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Kim Jungwoo (NCT)-centric, LET'S GET IT, Major Illness, Near Death Experiences, Sick Kim Jungwoo (NCT), Unknown Illness, medical emergencies, medical inaccuracy, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:09:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22526845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous_Introvert78/pseuds/Anonymous_Introvert78
Summary: "I told you," came the infuriated reply from the other end of the line. "That I don't want to talk to Jungwoo."And, as though something inside him had snapped, Johnny snatched the phone from Taeil's hand, pressed his mouth right up against the speakers and ground out the following words through gritted teeth:"Yukhei, Jungwoo is dying! If you don't get your ass back here, you won't get to talk to him ever again!"
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Kim Jungwoo, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Kim Jungwoo, Kim Jungwoo/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten, Kim Jungwoo/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan, Kim Jungwoo/Lee Taeyong, Kim Jungwoo/Mark Lee (NCT), Kim Jungwoo/Moon Taeil, Kim Jungwoo/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Kim Jungwoo/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Series: NCT Hurt/Comfort [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1413451
Comments: 150
Kudos: 662





	1. Kim Jungwoo

**Author's Note:**

> I'M BAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!

I'm writing a twenty-one part (yes, twenty-one part) series! One story for each member because I'm overly ambitious and honestly? I just wanted to see if it could be done.

I just need to finish tweaking the last chapter before I post this so please be patient for a few days.

**NO TRIGGER WARNINGS APPLY :)**

****


	2. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Johnny!

As a leader, Taeyong was trained to spot the little things. Even if they were barely noticeable, he had learned that the right combination of slip ups in the right order could indicate an impending breakdown or a medical emergency caused by exhaustion and stress.

Skipping meals, practising extra hours, withdrawing from social situations were all at the top of his mental checklist and as soon as one of his members started to exhibit one of them, it was his job as a leader to throw himself all over it and nip it in the bud before it could go far enough to be irreversible.

His eyes were twice as sharp as anyone else in his team, always on the look out for somebody who was sweating a little too much or shivering a little too violently or staying quiet a little too long. He could spot the warning signs from a mile away.

Except, sometimes, he didn’t need to. Sometimes, the warning signs weren’t just faintly blinking lights in the outskirts of his vision, little pinpricks that needed to be squinted at and scrutinised before they could be clarified as real.

Sometimes, the warning signs were luminescent billboards plastered over every surface, screeching and screaming their ominous message so loudly that even the most amateur and untrained eye couldn’t miss them.

And this was one of those times.

“I’m not sure about leaving,” Taeyong muttered under his breath, picking nervously at the sleeve of his sweater as his eyes darted around the practice room. “Something isn’t right and I don’t like it.”

“I know,” Taeil hummed in reply, following the leader’s line of sight to the centre of the dance floor where the remaining members of 127 were screeching and squealing with their usual crackhead quirkiness. “But you can’t just miss this opportunity. SuperM getting to perform on Saturday Night Live is a huge fucking deal, Tae, and they can’t do it without you.”

Taeyong understood that perfectly well. He had made a commitment to Baekhyun and the others and he couldn’t toss that aside just because his spiny senses were tingling a little.

His manager was standing in the doorway, the artist's suitcase in his hand, his foot tapping impatiently against the floor as he periodically cleared his throat and gestured to his watch, rudely reminding Taeyong that their flight wasn’t going to wait for him.

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Taeil promised, speaking low just in case anyone was eavesdropping on their conversation. “You can call as soon as you land in the US and I’ll update you on what’s happening but you have to leave now, Tae.”

But something wasn’t right.

Jungwoo and Yukhei had got into a fight the previous night and Taeyong was ashamed to admit that he’d actually been afraid to intervene. They were so angry, standing on opposite sides of the living room and screaming at each other until their faces turned blue.

Nobody – not even them – seemed to know what had started it. They had just suddenly snapped at each other and, for two people who were usually the best of friends, things had gotten alarmingly violent very quickly.

Punches had been thrown, slurs had been spat, fingers had even reached for throats but, thanks to Johnny and Jaehyun, nobody suffered more than a couple of sore ribs and a broken fingernail.

It wasn’t the first time there had been conflict in their ranks. It wasn’t the first time that conflict had included Yukhei and Jungwoo, but it was what followed afterwards that had Taeyong’s nerves truly fraying at the edges.

Jungwoo was an emotional person. He wore his heart on his sleeve, spoke out against injustice at every given opportunity and was never ashamed to cry if his body felt the need to.

He had never been someone to pretend something hadn’t happened just so he wouldn’t have to face it. He had never been someone who pushed down their feelings until they were buried deep inside where nobody could find them. He had never been someone who would laugh in the face of misery.

But that was exactly what he was doing: laughing. He’d been laughing since the altercation the previous night. He’d been laughing since he woke up this morning. He’d been laughing since they’d driven to the practise room and he was laughing now, as though his body just couldn’t get enough.

And a laugh shouldn’t be sinister or worrying, but this one most definitely was. It bore no resemblance to Jungwoo’s usual giggle that sounded like music to whoever heard it. It was strained and uncontrollable and manic and bordering on the psychotic.

It was … It was just wrong. Everybody could see it.

Taeyong had briefly wondered if it was some bizarre coping mechanism the boy had thought up to help him deal with the words he and Yukhei had exchanged in that living room, but it was so out of character and so unexpected and just … wrong.

“Taeyong,” Taeil reminded gently, breaking Taeyong out of his concerned haze. “You need to go.”

Behind him, there was a screech of fright and a thump as Donghyuck’s body hit the ground from what Taeyong could only assume had been some kind of wrestling move, and there was Jungwoo: laughing.

Laughing like he might die of a punctured lung, hands braced on his knees, tears streaming down his face. Just laughing. And it was wrong.

“Don’t ignore my calls,” Taeyong muttered to his hyung, grabbing hold of Taeil’s wrist and staring him straight in the eye to be sure he was being understood. “Keep me updated.”

“I will,” the eldest promised, prying his dongsaeng’s fingers from his arm and giving him a careful push towards the door. “Have a safe flight.”

Taeyong tried to smile in gratitude but the only shape his lips were capable of forming was a thin grim line before his manager seized him by the elbow and dragged him out of the practice room.

He never truly forgave himself for leaving just when he was needed most.

\------------------------

Trying to stay true to his word to Taeyong, Taeil didn’t take his eyes off Jungwoo and the closer attention he paid, the more freaked out he became.

There was definitely something more than a little eerie about the way the boy was cackling, almost like he was on drugs, and his movements were badly coordinated. He couldn’t seem to concentrate for more than half a second and was constantly trying to drag whoever would listen into his own personal little joke.

They were supposed to be rehearsing, a task already made doubly difficult by the fact that Taeyong and Mark were on a plane to the States, but Taeil could see that Yuta’s patience was wearing thin with every passing minute Jungwoo continued to mess up.

“Hey,” he heard Johnny say, grabbing the interim dance leader by the shoulder when he looked like he’d finally reached the end of his tether. “Why don’t we take a break for a bit?”

Yuta still looked pissed as hell but he nodded his reluctant approval, turning away from the youngsters as Johnny raised his voice to alert everybody that practice was being halted for a few minutes.

“Sir, yes, sir!” Jungwoo shouted, jumping to a mock salute and then erupting into a fit of giggles that nobody reciprocated.

It had reached the point where even Donghyuck had realised something wasn’t right.

“Jungwoo …” Taeil started, padding cautiously over to the cackling boy in the centre of the room. “Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?” Jungwoo parroted, straightening up and grinning with a kind of stupid disbelief on his face. “Are you okay, hyung? Why can’t you just loosen up a little? Come on! Laugh!”

“Jungwoo …” Taeil tried again, unsure whether touching the kid would set off some kind of explosion. “I don’t think you’re quite right. Maybe you should go home or …”

“Go home? Why the fuck would I need to go home? I’m fine! I’m great! Look, I’ll show you!”

There was a stack of chairs in the corner of the room, at least six or seven slotted on top of each other, and, before anybody could stop him, Jungwoo had scaled the tower like a monkey and perched precariously on top.

“See?” he squawked triumphantly, spreading his arms wide and grinning down at Taeil’s stunned expression. “I’m fan-fucking-tastic! Look, I can even stand up straight!”

“Jungwoo, don’t –” Doyoung warned, already starting forwards with his arms outstretched, ready to pull his psychotic bandmate down from danger, but Taeil grabbed hold of his wrist.

“Jungwoo, please, get down!”

But it was clear to every person present that Jungwoo had no intention of obeying the command. Instead, he released the securing hold he had on the back of the tallest chair and straightened his legs, the entire structure wobbling dangerously as he slowly rose to full height with a whoop of glee.

“See?” he yelled down at them, bobbing his knees as though he was enjoying shaking his fragile foundations. “I’m fine! I’m great! I’m –”

He overbalanced.

Taeil closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see his little brother falling but he still heard the almighty crash of the chairs clattering to the floor and the shuddering shatter of a mirror splitting into a thousand jagged fragments.

And when he finally forced himself to look, Jungwoo was on the ground, sprawled over a platter of broken mirror shards with blood slowly seeping through his clothes and his entire group surrounding him, all of them trying to put pressure on the open wounds.

And he was still laughing.

\---------------------

“The CT scan showed that there was no damage to the brain and all of his wounds are superficial. He really was very lucky. It could have been so much worse.”

Taeil nodded to show that he was listening to the doctor’s words but he couldn’t take his eyes off Jungwoo’s bedridden figure in the room on the other side of the huge rectangular window he was standing behind.

The boy’s face was scraped and scratched, some of the larger wounds pulled together with steri-strips or sutures and both his hands were bandaged but it was still blindingly obvious to anybody paying the slightest attention that all was not well in that kid’s head despite what the CT showed.

The maniacal cackling had faded away to be replaced with a kind of dizzy chuckle and the stupidly giddy grin was yet to leave his face even as the nurses bustled around him, taking various vital signs and clipping multicoloured wires to his fingers.

Johnny was standing at the foot of his bed, his arms crossed over his chest and his jaw set as he observed his dongsaeng’s intoxicated behaviour with a venomous cocktail of confusion and concern battling for dominance in his eyes.

“Now, the tox screen was clear,” the doctor continued, and Taeil forced himself to pay attention once again. “But I have to ask, is there any history of drug use?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

The idea was preposterous. Jungwoo would never touch drugs. He hated them. He hated the mere mention of them. Something must have happened in his youth to spur such a loathing but there was one thing for certain: Jungwoo wasn’t high.

“We did an X-Ray of his chest that showed one of his lungs appears a little cloudy and we also noticed that he’s coughing quite a bit. How long has that been going on?”

Taeil blinked, struck dumb to the core as he gawped at the sheets of film the physician was holding up, revealing the black and white imprint of Jungwoo’s ribcage with one side completely blotted out.

“I …” he stuttered, eyes rallying between the scans and the alarmingly fast heart rhythm portrayed by the monitor beside Jungwoo’s bed. “I don’t know. I … I just thought he had a cold.”

“And you all live together?”

“Yes.”

“Are any other residents exhibiting similar behaviours?”

“No.”

He couldn’t quite believe this was happening. Taeyong had only left a couple of hours ago and already there was a member in hospital and a team that was crumbling at the seams.

“Okay,” the doctor concluded with a sigh, sliding the X-Rays back into a file and then folding his hands in front of him. “Jungwoo-ssi’s symptoms – elevated heart rate, coughing, impaired neurological functions – seem to be compatible with low-level carbon monoxide poisoning.”

“What?” Taeil spluttered, actually taking a small step back such was the shock to his system. “But if we had a gas leak then surely the rest of us would be sick, too?”

“It is unusual,” the doctor agreed solemnly. “But his carboxyhaemoglobin levels are alarmingly high, suggesting that there isn’t enough oxygen in his blood, so we’re going to put him in a hyperbaric chamber that will hopefully stabilise his oxygen levels.”

Taeil had absolutely no idea what had just been said to him but he nodded nonetheless, reaching out to sign the consent forms. He wasn’t a doctor. He knew nothing about what could possibly be happening to his little brother so, whatever these people thought was best, they would be doing.

The speed with which Jungwoo was transferred was just a testament to how concerned the professionals really were and it did nothing for Taeil’s confidence.

He and Johnny trailed behind the gurney as it was punted through the corridors, Jungwoo’s airy chortling occasionally interrupted by a bout of spluttering coughs as he fiddled with the pulse ox on his finger.

“We should call Taeyong,” Johnny muttered, holding open a door so they could slide the bed into the room with the weird white box things. “He needs to know … Yukhei needs to know.”

Taeil shook his head as he checked his watch, “Their plane hasn’t landed yet and they’re about to be on live TV anyway. You really want to terrify them before then? Taeyong will throw a fit, Yukhei will refuse to go on and then they’ll all be in trouble.”

Something in the back of his head was screaming at him, pounding its imaginary little fists against the inside of his skull and demanding that he dial Taeyong’s number right there, right then.

Because Yukhei needed to be here. He needed to patch things up with Jungwoo before something terrible happened. Before … Taeil cut off his own thoughts before they could journey down that darkened path.

Instead, he slipped over the threshold just in time to see the nurses manoeuvring Jungwoo onto some kind of retractable bed that looked as if it was going to slide into the cylindrical container with the tiny little windows and the nobs on the side: hyper-something chamber they’d called it.

“Press this button if you have trouble breathing,” one of the nurses was saying, handing Jungwoo a tiny little remote control with a single notch in the centre. “The chamber will decompress and we’ll be able to get you out.”

Jungwoo wasted no time in clicking the button.

“Nah, it’s broken,” he dismissed, tossing the thing aside and chuckling at his own wit.

Taeil stepped forwards, intending on trying one last time to snap the kid out of whatever brainless stupor he was floating around in but before he could get a single word out of his mouth, Jungwoo yelped in pain.

His right arm snapped up to his chest, wrist bent at an awkward angle and fingers twisted into stiffened lumps of unmoveable flesh as the entire limb jerked and twitched.

“What’s happening?” Johnny cut in, alarm evident in his voice as Taeil felt his own heart rate start to soar.

“It’s a muscle contracture,” the nurse who’d given Jungwoo the button explained, her eyebrows drawn together in the centre of her forehead in a clear sign of worry. “It means his brain’s not getting enough oxygen and he’s losing motor function. We should start this right away.”

Jungwoo’s hand was still spasming but the pain was gone from his expression, replaced with an undeniable sense of amusement as he watched his fingers contorting themselves into unnatural positions.

The chamber started to hum and the bed was slowly sucked inside, taking Jungwoo and his euphoric twitches with it. As soon as his full body was inserted, the container sealed itself with a soft sucking _whoosh._

“Should we be scared?” Johnny asked the nurse the moment they were shunted out into the hallway. “Is this serious?”

“No,” she said, but Taeil could see through her lies as easily as he could see through glass. “It’s probably nothing more than a little carbon monoxide poisoning. He should be right as rain in no time.”

So why didn’t they believe her?


	3. Chapter Two

The laughing stopped. Just like that. No build up, no warning, no gradual descent into silence. It just stopped and, somehow, that was creepier than everything else put together.

“I don’t know what happened,” Jungwoo whispered, his face still sliced with tiny little cuts from his fall into the mirror. “I couldn’t control it.”

“Don’t worry about that now,” Yuta dismissed, adding another pillow to the growing pile behind the patient’s head as he tried to sit up, constantly getting tangled in the oxygen cannula threaded beneath his nose. “Your heart rate’s back to normal and they said that whatever was going wrong in your blood is getting better. You’re going to be okay.”

Jungwoo bobbed his head in acknowledgement, but it looked like he was trying to convince himself rather than agree with what Yuta was saying, and a single tear slipped out of the corner of his eye.

“I was so scared,” he whimpered, clutching Yuta’s hand so tightly that the older boy momentarily lost circulation in the tips of his fingers. “I thought I was going to die.”

They all had. There hadn’t been a single one of them who hadn’t truly believed this was the end when they saw Jungwoo lying on that studio floor on a sea of broken mirror fragments, bleeding and giggling like it was the funniest thing in the world.

“But you’re not dying,” Yuta told him fervently. “Whatever you had, it’s gone now. And you’re fine.”

The door slid open and both of them glanced up to see Taeil stepping over the threshold, looking like he’d just had the weight of the world lifted off his shoulders, one of the doctors right behind him.

“Why are you crying?” the eldest teased playfully and even Yuta had to suppress a smirk as Jungwoo furiously swatted at the moisture on his face.

“I feel a lot better,” he defended, pouting slightly beneath the plastic tube sitting atop his lip. “The meds must be working.”

“They must,” the doctor agreed with a sideways upturn to the corner of his mouth as he pulled two flimsy black sheets out of a file and pinned them to the wall directly opposite Jungwoo’s bed. “The cloudiness in your lungs is clearing up. We suspect you might have had Legionnaire’s disease.”

“But now he doesn’t?” Yuta asked hopefully, crossing his fingers in his lap where no one could see.

“Now he doesn’t.”

Thank God. Thank fucking God. None of them knew what Legionnaire’s disease was but it didn’t matter anymore because it was gone. It was no more. It had left Jungwoo’s lungs and given him back his life.

“Thank you,” Yuta sighed, a little breathless as he got to his feet and reached out to shake the doctor’s hand. “Whatever you did, thank you.”

The man inclined his head humbly but Yuta knew how these people’s brains worked. He was probably patting himself on the back and awarding himself a metaphorical gold star for his extraordinary medicinal skills.

“So I can go home now?” Jungwoo piped up from behind them and Yuta turned around, already grinning as he prepared to answer, but something stopped him from relaying the good news.

Jungwoo wasn’t looking at any of them. He wasn’t even looking at the chest X-Rays clipped to the wall. Instead, he was staring resolutely, and smiling rather giddily, at the empty chair Yuta had been occupying just a few moments ago.

“I can, right?” he repeated without moving his line of sight and there was a strange kind of glassy lifelessness to his eyes. One that definitely hadn’t been there moments before.

“Jungwoo?” Yuta asked tentatively, shuffling a couple of steps forwards and almost flinching when Jungwoo’s head suddenly snapped up to look at him.

“Oh, you’re there. Sorry, hyung. I can go home, right?”

Something was wrong. Yuta couldn’t exactly identify what it was but it was most definitely wrong. He spun on his heel, searching for somebody or something that could help, and was met with Taeil’s identical expression of confused concern.

“Jungwoo,” the doctor said, calmly striding over towards the bed. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

The answer came immediately, without hesitation, as though the boy was one hundred percent certain that he was correct.

“Three.”

The doctor had never even raised his hand.

“What’s going on?” Taeil blurted, the first dregs of panic starting to filter through. “Why … What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing!” Jungwoo cried, his own smile slowly fading from his face. “Nothing’s wrong. What are you talking about? I’m fine.”

The physician whipped out a pen light and shone it directly into the boy’s eyes, telling him which direction to look in and when to blink, and grimacing at whatever results he received.

“I’m fine …” Jungwoo repeated but it was quieter this time, as though he wasn’t quite sure anymore.

“You’re blind,” Yuta whispered, intending for his own ears to be the only recipient of his conclusion, but everybody in the room automatically whipped their heads in his direction.

“No, I’m not!”

“What’s your hyung wearing?” the doctor interrupted, pointing at Taeil as he spoke.

And once again, Jungwoo answered with nothing but confidence and certainty, “Blue jeans, black hoodie, white trainers.”

Yuta looked at Taeil. At his black jeans, his white tank top, reddish brown overshirt and navy blue converse.

He’d gotten everything wrong. Every single thing, even though Taeil was standing right in front of him. There was no denying it anymore. Their baby was blind.

\-----------------------

“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Jaehyun interjected, closing his eyes, holding up his hands and taking a deep breath to clear his head before returning his attention to the doctor in front of him. “So he really thinks he can see?”

The doctor nodded solemnly, “Physically, he can. But his brain just can’t process it.”

Jaehyun heard Yuta cursing from somewhere to his left but he was too numb to tell him to mind his language.

Jungwoo was blind? How? He’d been seeing perfectly well just a few hours ago. How could his sight disappear so fast? And hadn’t he been getting better? They’d said his lungs had cleared up, the weird maniacal laughing had stopped … He couldn’t be blind.

“So do you know what’s caused it?”

“Well …” the doctor sighed, and alarm bells immediately started ringing in Jaehyun’s head. A sighing doctor was not a good sign. “We did a contrast MRI scan and found a blood clot in the Circle of Willis, pretty much in the centre of the brain.”

No. No, no, no, no, no, no.

“This isn’t happening,” Yuta was muttering under his breath, and Jaehyun could practically feel him pacing back and forth. “This actually isn’t happening.”

Everything was white noise. Everything was ringing. Everything was both deafening and silent all at once, and Jaehyun could only stare at this man with the long white coat and the glasses sitting atop the ridge of his nose.

A clot in the brain. There was a name for that, right? A proper name. A scary name. A fucking terrifying name. A stroke.

Jungwoo was having a stroke? Their bubbly, sunshiny, twenty-one-year-old baby was having a stroke? It couldn’t be possible. Kids didn’t have strokes. Jungwoo was still a kid. Jungwoo couldn’t be having a stroke.

“In addition to that …”

What the fuck? That wasn’t enough? There was more?

“We found a lesion in Jungwoo-ssi’s cingulate cortex that would explain the euphoria and some inflammation in the lining of the ventricles.”

“Can you speak in a language we actually understand?” Yuta snapped viciously, and Jaehyun’s hand shot out on impulse to grip his hyung’s shoulder, trying to squeeze some sense back into him.

They couldn’t afford to be pissing off the people who were trying to save their brother’s life.

“My apologies,” the doctor acknowledged, inclining his head slightly. “We believe that Jungwoo-ssi has contracted an infection. The toxins led to the degeneration of his neurological functions and caused the legion at the back of his brain.”

It was all too much. Building up, higher and higher and higher. A few hours ago, they’d thought it was carbon monoxide poisoning. Then they said it was a stroke. Now they were saying it was some kind of infection.

Jaehyun wanted to believe they knew what they were doing. He wanted to believe it so badly but he was truly starting to question their capabilities if they’d done this many tests on Jungwoo’s failing body and were yet to come up with a solid diagnosis.

“So what are you going to do?” he asked, giving Yuta’s shoulder another squeeze to ensure he stayed about as calm as a person could be in their situation. “How do you treat him?”

“We can use blood thinners to treat the clot,” came the business-like response. “But we’re going to have to do a biopsy to try and identify the infection so we know the exact course of treatment needed.”

“And what does that involve?”

“It’s where we drill a hole in the skull and extract a small sample of the brain tissue that will then be taken for tests.”

Jaehyun blinked, feeling as if his entire heart was just shrivelling up inside his chest.

“You’re going to drill a hole in my little brother’s brain?”

“Yes,” the doctor agreed. “And it will tell us how to save his life.”

And who was Jaehyun to argue with that?

\-------------------------

“I’m going to be awake?” Jungwoo whispered incredulously, tears of terror burning the backs of his eyes. “For the entire thing.”

“Yeah, you will be,” came Taeil’s soft reassurance from somewhere to his left. “But they’re going to numb everything so you won’t feel any pain.”

“But … I’ll hear it? I’ll hear the drill and I’ll hear them … digging around inside my head?”

There was a pause. A very long pause where he could almost hear the cogs whirring in Taeil’s mind before there was a very timid and very resigned sigh followed by a shameful mumble of, “yeah.”

There was fear. And then there was this. It was on a completely different scale and Jungwoo didn’t think he could actually feel so afraid. This morning, he’d been happy. He’d been laughing. He’d been okay. And now they were about to start cutting holes in his skull.

He thought he could see but they’d told him he couldn’t. That his mind was playing tricks on him. That there was something that was slowly and surely devouring his senses, one by one. That, if he didn’t let them do this terrifying procedure where he would be one hundred percent conscious as they drilled holes in his brain, he would die.

“I want to call Yukhei,” he blurted, the words leaving his mouth before he could even wrap his head around them. “If I’m going to die then I want him to know that I didn’t mean what I said.”

“You’re not going to die,” Taeil tried to interject, but Jungwoo was having none of it.

“Give me your phone!” he demanded, wriggling his hand free of his hyung’s grip and holding it out as though expecting the device to just appear in his palm. “Dial his number and give me the phone! I need to tell him I don’t hate him!”

“He already knows that, Jung …”

“Give me the phone!”

He was sobbing now. Uncontrollable hiccups plaguing the lungs that had so recently been clouded with fluid and crackling loudly. Tears rolling from eyes that didn’t work and seeping into his hair.

All he could think about was that argument. That terrible, childish, selfish argument where they’d stood nose to nose, screeching profanities into each other’s faces until Jungwoo had eventually concluded the whole affair with the singularly most horrible thing he’d ever said.

_“Just fucking leave! Go be the Avengers of K-Pop! I hope your plane goes down in the middle of the sea!”_

He hadn’t meant it. He really hadn’t. He’d been so caught up in the moment and in his fury that the curse had slipped past his lips before he could stop it.

He hadn’t been thinking properly. That’s what he’d told himself when he woke up the following morning. He hadn’t been thinking clearly enough to know that what he was saying was beyond terrible and Yukhei would understand that. He would make him understand once he came home.

But now they were about to carve chunks out of his brain and Jungwoo couldn’t take the risk of dying without being able to tell his best friend in the entire world that he didn’t hate his guts.

“Okay …” came Taeil’s hurried murmur before the cool surface of a phone was pressed into Jungwoo’s hand. “It’s ringing. Just hold it to your ear.”

Jungwoo obeyed, listening to the droning dial tone and hoping against hope that Yukhei wasn’t performing or in the shower or doing something else that would prevent him from answering the call.

_Click._

“Hi, Taeil-hyung. How’s it going?”

He sounded so happy. So carefree. How could he feel like that when Jungwoo was clinging to the brink of life with his fingertips? How could he be so relaxed when Jungwoo was chewing himself up inside after what had happened?

“Yukhei …” he whimpered, suppressing yet another sob. “Yukhei, it’s me … I really need to …”

_Click._

“Yukhei? Yukhei? Hello? Yukhei?”

He’d hung up the phone.

“No … No, hyung, call him back! Taeil-hyung, call him back! I need to tell him I’m sorry! I have to tell him I didn’t mean it!”

He could hear the heart monitor beside his bed start to spike. He could hear Taeil trying to calm him down. He could hear the various beeps from the phone as he tried and failed to find the right buttons that would get Yukhei’s voice to flow from the speakers again.

Yukhei had hung up on him.

“Jungwoo, they need to take you to surgery now.”

“No! I need to call him!”

“Jungwoo, please!”

Taeil sounded like he was crying, too. How many more people was Jungwoo going to hurt? How many more tears was Jungwoo going to cause?

“I’ll call him,” his hyung promised. “I swear to you, Jungwoo. I’ll call him back and I’ll tell him that you’re sorry and that you’ll speak to him as soon as you wake up. Okay? I promise I will tell him.”

They were moving his bed. He could feel the soft rattle of the wheels beneath him and he knew he was being valeted to the operating room even if he didn’t trust his sight anymore.

In a few minutes’ time, there were going to be metal pins inside his head. He was going to be listening to a drill slowly sawing through his bones. They were going to chop off part of his brain and send it for tests so they could identify what kind of mind-munching disease was slowly killing him.

But none of that mattered right now.

The only thing that mattered was that Yukhei had hung up on him.


	4. Chapter Three

“That’s it … That’s it, just squeeze … Keep squeezing …” Taeil murmured, wincing as his fingers started to pop with the force of Jungwoo’s grip. “You’re doing good … Just keep squeezing …”

“It hurts,” Jungwoo whimpered as his muscles went into another round of spasms, and Taeil felt his heart breaking on the spot. “Hyung, it really hurts. It really, really hurts.”

“I know … Just keep squeezing …”

It was pathetic. He knew that. Jungwoo was lying in that bed, literally blind, suffering excruciating agony, and all Taeil could come up with was ‘squeeze my hand’. He didn’t know what he was doing and that wasn’t what Jungwoo needed.

The kid’s head was turbaned in bandages, concealing the distinct lack of hair and the ugly scar the biopsy had left behind, and he was completely maxed out on morphine and other pain medications. The doctors couldn’t give him anything else. Taeil had begged them, but they couldn’t.

“I need it to stop,” Jungwoo sobbed, tears sliding from his useless eyes and free hand twisted into a misshapen talon on top of his chest. “Please, hyung … Please, hyung, make it stop … Make it stop …”

“I can’t.”

It was all Taeil could do not to bolt from the room and throw himself into a dark cupboard where he wouldn’t have to watch his little brother suffering. Instead, he used the hand Jungwoo wasn’t breaking to gently absorb the tears with the pads of his thumbs.

The door swung open and Taeil’s head shot up, hoping and praying that the newcomer was a doctor or a nurse who could produce a magic pill and bring this whole nightmare to an end, but all he got were Doyoung and Donghyuck.

“Who …” Jungwoo croaked. “Who …”

“It’s Donghyuck,” Taeil told him, frantically beckoning the maknae forward and passing Jungwoo’s hand over to him. “He’s going to sit with you while I talk to the doctor.”

He shot Donghyuck a pleading look, knowing that the very last thing the kid would want to do was watch his hyung writhe in pain and twitch with spasms but needing somebody to ensure that Jungwoo wasn’t alone.

“Hi, hyung. You’re stuck with me for a while,” Donghyuck chuckled and Taeil mouthed a frantic ‘thank you’ as he grabbed hold of Doyoung’s elbow and dragged him out of the room.

Immediately once the door closed behind them, Taeil let the questions fall from his lips without even bothering to filter the desperation and the pleading from his tone.

“Tell me the biopsy results came back. Tell me they know what this is.”

He couldn’t take it any longer. He couldn’t do this without Taeyong by his side. He couldn’t listen to the whimpers and continue to dry the tears as the clock slowly counted down. He needed there to be a diagnosis and he needed it to be now.

But, from the look of grief and dread that dawned on Doyoung’s face, that wasn’t what was going to happen anytime soon.

“The results were inconclusive,” he whispered. “Non-specific signs of inflammation or something like that. They still don’t know how to treat him.”

“Fuck …” Taeil cursed, scrubbing his hands over his face and running his fingers through his unwashed hair. “Fuck!”

These people were doctors, right? Then why couldn’t they figure out what was going on with his baby brother? These people were paid to save lives but Jungwoo was dying right now and they were doing nothing to stop it. These people were meant to take away pain and instead they were allowing it to take hold.

“We need to call Yukhei,” Doyoung stated, his tone firm even though his eyes were slightly glassy. “He needs to talk to Jungwoo.”

There was a pause.

“And it needs to be now.”

Taeil’s eyes widened, his pulse sped up and his heart felt like it had lodged itself in his throat, cutting off his air supply. He could read between the lines, he could untangle Doyoung’s inference but he wasn’t sure he wanted to.

He wasn’t sure he was ready to.

“Are you saying …” he started cautiously, clearing his throat and staring pointedly at the ceiling in the hope that it would impede his approaching tears. “Are you saying … that it’s now or never?”

“Yes,” Doyoung rasped, his voice cracking horrifically on that single syllable. “I’m saying it’s now or never.”

Because Jungwoo was now officially, irrevocably, irrefutably dying. The doctors had exhausted every possibility, they had poured all their money and all their resources into trying to figure out what was eating that kid’s brain and now they were out of options.

Jungwoo was dying.

“I’ve tried calling him,” Johnny interjected, appearing from nowhere with his phone clutched in a white-knuckled fist and his hair looking like it hadn’t been brushed in days. “But he keeps hanging up as soon as I mention Jungwoo’s name.”

“Fuck, what did those idiots say to each other?” Taeil hissed, pulling out his own mobile and scrolling through his contact list until he spotted his target. “He’d better fucking listen to me or I’ll wring his neck.”

He put the call on speaker and held it out so the three of them could hear the dial tone droning in bored couplets, stretching on and on and on until there was a clicking sound and Yukhei’s voice started filtering from the device.

But, instead of a blissfully ignorant, “hello”, they got coldness and curtness and everything that Yukhei wasn’t supposed to possess when he spoke.

_Hi, I can’t take your call right now because I’m busy doing my fucking job, okay? And if you’re one of my hyungs trying to tell me to patch things up with Jungwoo then leave me the fuck alone!_

“See?” Johnny blurted as Doyoung let out a sharp sigh of frustration. “Now he’s not even picking up.”

“I’ll try Taeyong,” Taeil suggested. “He should be able to talk some sense into that brat.”

He told himself it was the stress that was turning him into this monster he barely even recognised. He didn’t swear, he didn’t insult his dongsaengs, he didn’t gossip about anything that didn’t include him, but now he was doing all three of those things and more.

He told himself it was the fear of losing Jungwoo to something they hadn’t even managed to identify and the thought of what he would become when that monitor went into flatline was almost as terrifying as the thought of Jungwoo’s smile disappearing from the world.

The phone rang three times before the call connected and Taeyong’s slightly breathless voice crackled through the speakers.

“Hi, hyung! Sorry, we just got off stage. I probably sound like a seventy-year-old …”

“Taeyong!” Taeil cut him off, too relieved to bother with his rudeness. “Put Yukhei on the phone.”

There was a pause from the other end of the line and they could hear the hustle and bustle of staff members in the background, along with Taeyong’s slightly wheezing breaths. They really should get him to see a doctor about that.

“Hyung …” came the tentative reply. “He really doesn’t want to talk about Jungwoo right now. It’s kind of messing with his head and I think he just needs to have some …”

“Jungwoo’s in the hospital.”

He hadn’t quite meant for it to come out as harsh as that. He couldn’t even imagine Taeyong’s face right now and didn’t want to think about what was running through his head now that he knew one of his own was either sick or hurt.

“W … What?” came the almost inaudible reply.

“I’m sorry,” Taeil blurted as Doyoung bounced anxiously on the balls of his feet beside him. “I didn’t mean to just spring that on you, but Jungwoo’s in the hospital and it’s really, really, _really_ bad. We need you guys to get back here but, before then, we need you to put Yukhei on the phone because Jungwoo wants to tell him he’s sorry before …”

He trailed off, the end of his sentence too terrible to even form into words, and he could almost hear the anxiety radiating off Taeyong’s body.

“Tae, please!” Johnny called out. “They need to talk to each other right now!”

There was no response from the other side and, for a moment, Taeil was worried Taeyong was in shock and therefore wouldn’t be able to carry out their request, but then there was a shuffle, muffled voices and the speaker changed.

“What is it?”

“Yukhei!” Taeil gasped, trying to figure out the best way to word this message. “Jungwoo …”

“I told you,” came the infuriated reply from the other end of the line. “That I don’t want to talk to Jungwoo.”

And, as though something inside him had snapped, Johnny snatched the phone from Taeil’s hand, pressed his mouth right up against the speakers and ground out the following words through gritted teeth:

“Yukhei, Jungwoo is dying! If you don’t get your ass back here, you won’t get to talk to him ever again!”

“Hyung!” Doyoung hissed in horror, but Taeil said nothing.

Yukhei had needed that metaphorical slap in the face to give him the clarity and to pull him out of that steaming vat of self-pity and childish resentment he’d been allowing himself to stew in since he’d left for the States.

There was a mess of unintelligible syllables and then the background chitchat was cut off, as though Yukhei had slipped into a different room just so he could snarl perfectly clearly into the phone.

“If this is a trick or some sort of sick joke to get me to come back then it’s not fucking funny.”

“It’s not a joke,” Johnny snapped, still clutching the device and looking as if he was on the verge of punching the nearest wall. “There’s something wrong with Jungwoo’s brain! He’s in excruciating pain, he’s gone blind, the doctors think his heart’s about to give out and the only thing he wants is to talk to you so grow the fuck up and talk to him!”

And Taeil thought that was it. He thought Johnny had finally managed to do what no one else could and breach the barrier Yukhei and Jungwoo had built up between them.

But before he could hear the response that came from the other end of the line, Jungwoo started screaming. Screaming so loudly that it had them clamping their hands over their ears even from a completely different room.

Everything was forgotten in that moment as Doyoung practically broke the door down and the three of them stumbled onto the scene that would haunt their nightmares for the rest of their lives.

Donghyuck had shrunk back against the wall, tears gliding down his cheeks and his hands clutched to his chest, clearly in a state of complete shock as Jungwoo writhed and thrashed against his bed covers, whimpering and sobbing in inexplicable agony as the heart monitor beside him started flashing red and green.

“Oh my God …” Taeil breathed, stumbling forwards and slamming his palm against the call button. “Jungwoo! Jungwoo!”

But Jungwoo didn’t look like he could hear him.

There were veins bulging in his neck, his face was turning red, his lip was bleeding from biting down on it so hard and his hands were clamped either side of his head, knees drawn up to his chest as he rocked back and forth.

“Stop!” he was screaming, completely inconsolable. “Stop! Make it stop! Please make it stop!”

Taeil didn’t know what to do. The only thing he could think of was throwing himself onto the bed beside his suffering baby and wrapping his dying body in his arms, wedging the kid’s head beneath his chin and running his fingers through his hair.

“It’s okay …” he whispered, but he went completely unheard over the sound of the medical personnel rushing into the room. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. Hyung’s here.”

“He’s tachycardic!” one of the nurses cried. “Severely tachycardic!”

“He’s in pain!” Taeil roared back, clinging to Jungwoo even harder in the hope that he could squeeze the anguish out of him. “Do something! Please! Do something!”

“Please!” Jungwoo echoed, his voice raw and crackling as it broke. “Please! Make it stop! Hyung, please, make it stop!”

Taeil glared up at the doctor, wishing he could rip that man’s soul out of his body and give it to Jungwoo so that his baby could live and that useless lump of incompetent lump of flesh couldn’t mess up anybody else’s healthcare.

“We can put him in a coma,” the man in the white coat mumbled, glancing up at the monitors as he grabbed a syringe from the nurse. “It’s the only way to stabilise his heart rhythm but there’s a chance he might not wake …”

“Just do it!” Taeil bellowed as Jungwoo’s fingers fisted in the front of his shirt. “Do it now!”

He knew he was the family member from hell. He knew he was making this guy’s job a billion times harder than it already was but he didn’t care. His kid was in pain and that needed to stop. Now. If a coma was the thing that would do that then so be it.

He watched the fluid being injected into Jungwoo’s IV bag, oblivious to Donghyuck sobbing in Johnny’s arms as Doyoung just stared in some kind of stunned stupor by the wall.

“Stop … Stop … Stop …” Jungwoo was whimpering, his head lolling against Taeil’s shoulder.

“It is stopping, baby. I promise. It’s stopping. It’s okay. You’re going to go to sleep. It’s going to stop.”

The screaming died, the struggling weakened, the heartbeat slowed back into a steady rhythm and Taeil felt Jungwoo’s body relaxing against him as he finally succumbed to the drugs in his system.

“Good boy,” Taeil murmured under his breath, pressing his lips into Jungwoo’s sweat-soaked hair. “That’s my good boy. Good boy … That’s my good boy … It’s okay …”

“Sir, we’re going to have to intubate him,” the nurse interrupted, slotting her hand beneath Jungwoo’s head and levering him back down onto the pillow. “He can’t support his airway on his own anymore.”

Taeil nodded, swiping at his face with the back of his hand and slithering off the bed so the professionals could slide the tube down his little brother’s throat.

He’d done the right thing. He’d consented and it had been the right thing. Jungwoo’s heart couldn’t have taken any more. He’d been in pain and now he wasn’t. Taeil had done the right thing. He’d done the right thing.

Definitely.

Maybe.

From the other sound of the room, there was the soft click of Johnny finally hanging up the phone.


	5. Chapter Four

“Four hours.”

No. No, no, no, no, no. This wasn’t happening. The world wasn’t that cruel. This couldn’t be happening.

“Four hours?” Yuta echoed blankly as Taeil stumbled backwards and collapsed into the waiting room chair. “He’s got four hours to live?”

“How is that even possible?” Jaehyun blurted, his gaze pivoting around the room as if expecting somebody to tell him that the whole thing had been a huge prank. “He was … He was cracking jokes and dancing around the studio less than two days ago.”

Johnny didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure he even had the ability to do so. His body was shutting down, his mind was putting up walls and the only thing he was capable of doing was leaning against the wall and letting his eyes flutter closed.

So long as he couldn’t see that doctor’s solemn face, none of this was real. That man was only feigning concern. He couldn’t care less about their friend if somebody paid him. He didn’t have the right to wear a look like that.

“Whatever this disease is,” the white-coated man started. “It’s spreading exceedingly fast. His EEG shows that, even though we’ve put him a medically-induced coma, his body’s still in pain. His oxygen saturation levels are at 94 right now but they’re still decreasing.”

“What does that mean?”

“If they drop below 90, there is a very real danger that Jungwoo-ssi will develop a fatal arrythmia. In other words, he’ll go into cardiac arrest and the chances of us being able to resuscitate him are very low.”

Johnny allowed himself to slide down the wall until he came to rest on the floor, his eyes still closed and his face clasped in his hands. He wished he could block everything out but, at the same time, he needed to hear what was happening.

And what was happening was pretty clear: Jungwoo was as good as dead.

“So … What?” Yuta continued, still sounding as if he was yet to catch up with the rest of them. “What do we … We just wait? Is that really all we can do?”

What more could they do that they hadn’t already done? Jungwoo had been poked, prodded and probed without relent for over twenty-four hours and they still knew nothing about this thing that was killing him.

Right now, he was lying in a bed with a tube down his throat, attached to half a dozen different machines as his brain slowly but surely succumbed to the monster that was devouring it. Was it really worth attacking his body with more tests when he was just going to die in a couple of hours anyway?

He’d been laughing just the other day.

He’d been smiling just the other day.

They were probably never going to hear that laugh or see that smile again so wouldn’t it just be kinder to sit at his bedside and hold his hand as he slipped away rather than make him suffer any further?

“We can do a white matter brain biopsy.”

“What?” came Jaehyun’s bewildered scoff. “I thought you already did one of those.”

Johnny opened his eyes, a horribly icy vortex of dread swirling in the pit of his stomach as some unknown force told him that whatever was coming next wasn’t going to sound particularly appealing.

“The first biopsy didn’t give us the results we needed,” the doctor continued, pushing his ridiculously nerdy glasses a little higher on the bridge of his nose. “Because we only used grey matter. White matter is closer to the brain stem and therefore has a higher chance of providing us with a diagnosis.”

The penny was hanging.

“Then what are you waiting for?” Jaehyun demanded. “Go and do it!”

The penny was hanging.

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple. This procedure is far more invasive than anything else we’ve performed on Jungwoo-ssi. It could result in a range of severe and irreversible neurological deficits. He might never walk, talk or even be able to sit up on his own ever again.”

The penny dropped.

Of course, it had been too good to be true. Of course, there wasn’t an easy solution to this mortal battle. Of course, the only answer the possessed had every possibility of rendering Jungwoo permanently brain damaged.

“Can we have some time to think about it?” Taeil spoke up for the first time, sounding beyond exhausted and slightly nauseated. “Or do we have to make the decision now?”

“As soon as possible,” the doctor said grimly. “The longer we wait, the lower his oxygen levels will drop.”

And then he left, abandoning them with the singularly most difficult choice any of them were ever going to have to make. What was worse? Being a vegetable? Or being dead?

“What are we supposed to do?” Yuta whispered, glancing around at the other three contestants in this grotesque game of Russian Roulette. “This isn’t a call that we can make. This should be Jungwoo’s decision.”

“Jungwoo’s in a coma,” Taeil reminded him.

“Yeah, thanks, hyung! Like I didn’t know that!”

“Shut up, both of you!” Johnny shouted, cutting off the eldest before he had a chance to fire an angry retort and pushing himself up into a more vertical position. “You really think this is helping right now?”

Both of them shamefully dropped their gazes and Johnny let out a heavy sigh, scrubbing his hands over his face and raking his hair out of his eyes. He should cut it. It had grown too long. He should definitely cut it.

“Go sit with Jungwoo,” he ordered deftly, unable to look at the resignation and devastation in each of their faces. “Tell Doyoung and Donghyuck that they can take a break and have a shower or something. I’m going to call Taeyong.”

He left the room before any of them had a chance to contradict or protest his commands, his phone already sitting in his clammy palm and his trembling fingers already punching his leader’s number into the keypad.

Taeyong picked up before the first ring even cut off.

“What the hell, John?” he snapped, panic coming through as anger at his distinct lack of information. “We heard Jungwoo screaming, heard something about putting him in a coma and then you hang up and refuse to answer any of our calls?”

Johnny pulled the phone away from his ear and checked the information bar, wondering why he hadn’t spotted the forty-two missed calls from every single member of SuperM, Yukhei repetitively.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled into the speaker. “I didn’t mean to ignore you.”

“Johnny,” came Taeyong’s desperate pleading from the other end of the line. “What’s happening? We don’t know anything and it’s driving us crazy. Please just tell us something.”

At this point, Johnny couldn’t identify whether he was about to burst into tears or faint. His chest was getting tighter, his head felt like it was full of cotton wool, his eyes were burning and his knees felt alarmingly weak.

“They had to put him in a coma before the pain killed him,” he relayed robotically, his mind probably trying to distance himself from the whole situation as much as possible. “He’s still in pain now but his heart’s no longer in danger of giving out.”

He paused.

“Except if his oxygen levels drop below 90. Then his heart will give out. And they’re dropping pretty quickly so his heart probably will give out and we’re probably going to lose him, Tae. Unless, of course, we do this really dangerous brain biopsy that could either kill him, leave him permanently brain damaged or miraculously save his life which seems unlikely given the circumstances.”

It all came out in one breath and it wasn’t until he’d finished that he realised just how brutal he’d been. And, from the strangled silence that followed, Taeyong agreed with him.

“We’re at the airport,” the leader informed him. “We can be there in about twelve hours. Can you wait for us before you make any decisions?”

The first tear battled its way through Johnny’s eyelashes and splashed artistically onto the peak of his cheekbone.

“No,” he choked. “The doctor says he’s got four hours.”

They couldn’t wait for them. Jungwoo couldn’t wait for them. Because death wouldn’t let them. Because death didn’t wait until its victims were ready or their friends had said goodbye before it wrapped them in its icy tendrils and dragged them away forever.

For maybe ten minutes or so, Johnny just stood there in the corridor, clutching the phone to his ear and muffling his sobs with a hand over his mouth. Taeyong didn’t speak to him, didn’t try to procure any more information from him and was probably crying, too.

But then there was a different voice filtering through the speakers.

“Hyung?”

Yukhei.

“Can I talk to Jungwoo?”

Johnny had to suppress the urge to scream his reply, “He’s not conscious, Yukhei.”

“No, I know,” came the shaky reply. “But can you … Just put the phone to his ear? I know he might not be able to hear me but I … I have to talk to him.”

Why the fuck not? What was the point in refusing? Jungwoo would die in less than four hours. Yukhei, Taeyong, Mark and Ten weren’t going to be here in time to say goodbye. And they couldn’t confidently consent to this surgery knowing that it could take away that boy’s ability to live.

They had nothing more to lose.

“Yeah, Yukhei,” Johnny murmured, wiping the tears from his eyes and pushing open the door to Jungwoo’s room. “Just give me a second. He’s right here.”

Or, at least, what was left of him was right there. The real Jungwoo wasn’t that pale or that ghostly or that sickly. The real Jungwoo wasn’t capable of looking so tiny in a hospital gown with baby blue blankets pulled up to his chest. The real Jungwoo could breathe without a tube down his throat.

Ignoring the questioning glances from the others, Johnny made his way over to the side of the bed, put the phone on speaker and then laid it on the pillow beside Jungwoo’s ear.

“He can hear you,” he called softly before stepping back and wearily lowering himself into the chair beside Jaehyun.

There was a pause, a shuddering breath and a couple of mumbled words of reassurance from somebody that sounded like Taeyong before Yukhei started to speak. And as soon as he started, Johnny knew what he had to do.

“Jungwoo? Jungwoo, it’s … It’s Yukhei. I … um … I feel a bit stupid doing this right now so I’m just going to pretend I’m leaving a voicemail and that you’re going to wake up and listen to it and then tease me afterwards. I really wouldn’t mind you teasing me afterwards.”

Taeil buried his face in his hands.

“I’m so sorry, Jungwoo. For everything I said, for everything I did. It was stupid. I was stupid. We never should have been fighting anyway and I never should have left without smoothing things out with you. I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I’m not there right now.”

Donghyuck gave a stifled sniffle.

“I’m sorry that I have to say goodbye over the phone instead of in person. I’m sorry that I didn’t pick up the phone earlier so that we could get there quicker. I’m sorry I was too slow and too late and too stupid … I’m sorry. I really hope somebody’s holding your hand for me.”

Doyoung leaned forwards and took Jungwoo’s hand.

“I want you to know that we’re good … okay? The two of us … We’re good. I don’t care what you said. You were right anyway. I know I deserve to die. I know I deserve to be in pain right now instead of you. I … Shit, I’m really not good at this. But we’re good, okay, Woo? We’re not mad at each other anymore, okay?”

Yuta wiped at his tears and tried to pass it off as an itchy eye.

“So if you could … like … hang on or something … just until we get there … I’d be really grateful. I know it’s hard and I know I don’t deserve to ask you to stay in pain just so I can clear my own conscience but … please, Woo. Just a little longer, okay? Just a little longer. Just wait. Okay?”

It seemed like Yukhei was too far gone to keep talking after that because Taeyong returned to the speakers, an obvious emotional lilt to his voice.

“John?”

“I’m here,” Johnny responded, scooping up the phone from Jungwoo’s pillow and turning it off speaker. “I’m here, Tae.”

“You want to do the biopsy, don’t you?”

Taeyong knew him too well. Even from a different continent, even from halfway across the world, even though they couldn’t see each other’s faces, Taeyong knew what he’d been thinking.

“Yeah … Yeah, I do.”

Jungwoo couldn’t die. It just wasn’t a possibility. It wasn’t an option. They couldn’t sit here for the next … three and a half hours and wait for the moment when the heart monitor would start screeching, the doctors would burst in and pound his body with electricity as they shattered his ribcage before finally calling the time of death.

“Then do it.”

Johnny swallowed the globule of saliva that had lodged itself halfway up his throat and stepped away from the bed so he wouldn’t have to look at Jungwoo’s colourless face.

“Are you sure?” he whispered. “You know the risks. I … I don’t want to be the one responsible for …”

“I’ll take responsibility,” Taeyong interrupted. “I’ll take it all. If he dies, we put the blame on me. If he’s disabled, we put the blame on me. But we can’t let him go without giving him a chance. We can’t just do that, John.”

Johnny understood where he was coming from. Jungwoo was a hell of a lot stronger than anybody gave him credit for and he deserved to be given the chance to put up a fight. He deserved to battle for his life and, if he won, he deserved to call that win his own.

“We’re about to take off,” Taeyong told him, and Johnny could hear the hustle and bustle of passengers in the background as well as a couple of muffled sobs that were probably coming from Yukhei. “I wish I could be there with you and I’m so sorry you have to do this without me but I have to go now.”

“It’s okay,” Johnny assured him, glancing over his shoulder at where Doyoung was still stroking the pads of his thumbs over Jungwoo’s knuckles. “I’ve got this, Tae. Just … fly safe … and get here as fast as you can.”

“Tell everybody I love them and that I’m coming.”

“Will do.”

The call ended and that was it. There was no more stalling, no more hesitation, no more time for tears or tantrums. He glanced at the heart monitor just in time to see the large white number in the box labelled ‘SpO2’ switch from 90 to 89.

“Guys, if you’ve got something to say then say it now,” he shot at the others, keeping his tone as strong and steely as he possibly could given what he was about to say. “I’m telling the doctor that we’re going to do the biopsy.”

If there was a God up there then he’d better be paying attention.

This was one life that was worth saving.


	6. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the overly long wait. I have … not been okay for a while but I finally managed to get this out and, although I suck at endings, I hope it's satisfactory. Thank you all for waiting

The biopsy was longer this time round, lasting roughly four and a half hours when, before, it had only been about three. And even though Johnny had known it was going to take more time to drill deeper into his little brother’s skull, it didn’t make the wait any less painful.

He tried to sit in Jungwoo’s empty room with the others but he couldn’t handle not moving, not pacing, not having the space to wring his hands and run his fingers through his hair and scuff his shoes against the ground in an attempt to distract himself from the need to punch a wall.

He was telling himself that he’d done the right thing, that he’d given Jungwoo his best chance at survival, but it was pretty hard to think about that now that his baby brother was lying naked on an operating table with a tube down his throat and a knife in his brain.

Taeyong had said he’d take responsibility but Taeyong wasn’t here right now and Johnny was the one who’d signed those papers. If Jungwoo died in that room or never woke up or did wake up but suffered terrible neurological deficits, then it was him that the others were going to blame.

“I did the right thing,” he muttered under his breath, hands clenched into fists inside his pockets as he stared at the flowerbed in the hospital garden and tried to count the petals on the nearest rose. “I did the right thing. I gave him his best chance. I did the right thing.”

His phone buzzed against his thigh and he didn’t even need to look to know that it was a message from Doyoung. A message saying that, one way or the other, the surgery was over.

The walk from the courtyard to the ward felt like the walk to the gallows. His footsteps thudded against the floor at half the speed that his heart was pounding against the inside of his ribcage and he sent a billion and one prayers to heaven before he shouldered open the door.

The first thing he saw was Donghyuck, pitched forwards in a chair, sobbing, and he thought that was it. That the boy hadn’t made it. That he, Johnny Suh, had given the order that ultimately killed Kim Jungwoo.

But then he saw the breathless smile on Yuta’s face, the relief in Taeil’s watering eyes, the loss of tension in the way Jaehyun slumped against the wall, and he heard the soft reassurances that Doyoung was whispering into Donghyuck’s ear, his hand rubbing up and down the kid’s back.

“It’s okay … He’s still here … He’s still with us … It’s okay …”

And it felt like that crushing iron weight on his chest was relieved, if only for a second, before he remembered just how far they were from the outskirts of those woods everybody was always talking about.

Just because Jungwoo had held on long enough to make it off the table didn’t mean everything was fine and dandy and sunshine and rainbows. There was still a chance that he never awoke from the anaesthesia. There was still a chance that they’d cut too deep and rendered him brain damaged forever.

There was still a chance that they were going to lose him and Johnny didn’t know whether the idea of that was worse than the idea of Kim Jungwoo – their bouncy bubbly baby boy – not being able to walk or talk or even remember his own name.

“Did you …” Taeil croaked, addressing somebody Johnny hadn’t even realised was in the room. “Did you manage to find out what was happening to him?”

How had he forgotten? He’d been so wrapped up in the idea of Jungwoo losing everything that made him Jungwoo that he’d completely disregarded what had put them in this position in the first place: the unnamed disease that had been eating his brain.

“We did,” the doctor confirmed, a smug sort of smile on his face that Johnny found both irritating and unprofessional. “The biopsy results came back positive for meningoencephalitis. It’s an inflammation of the brain and its surrounding protective membranes that resembles both meningitis and encephalitis. It’s most likely he picked it up from dirty or contaminated water.”

Words. So many words. None of them made sense and yet all of them made sense all at once and it was too much to handle for Johnny’s already-weakened thought processing abilities.

They’d gone hiking together no more than two weeks ago, filming each other for one of their YouTube videos, and Jungwoo had gotten so thirsty that he’d drunk from the stream. He’d insisted that it was safe but Johnny hadn’t been so sure and now …

A drink of water had almost killed him. Had infected his brain with both meningitis and encephalitis, two diseases that were powerful enough to take a life all on their own. And he’d gotten both of them. At once. In one go.

“We’ve administered a drug,” the doctor continued. “That should kill the parasite and reduce the inflammation. Hopefully, if Jungwoo-ssi’s condition remains stable, he should wake up in the next few hours. I’m also confident that his sight will return to him.”

Johnny was numb. Completely and utterly numb.

It was too hard to believe that a parasite – a tiny, tiny microscopic little thing that was barely visible beneath a microscope – had been the cause of Jungwoo’s terrifying personality transplant, low oxygen levels, blindness and pain.

It was too small. There was no way. It was impossible.

And Johnny was numb.

So numb that he couldn’t even feel himself sitting down. That he didn’t even notice when Taeil was escorted to the intensive care unit so he could sit at Jungwoo’s bedside. Couldn’t comprehend a single damn thing until there were hands on his knees and a face swimming in front of him.

“John?”

Johnny blinked and suddenly, everybody else was gone. The room was empty save for him and the person who now crouched beside his chair, eyes shaded a pale purple of pure exhaustion and his hands shaking almost as violently as Johnny’s.

“You’re here,” he muttered, as if to convince himself that he wasn’t hallucinating. “You’re here.”

“I’m here,” Taeyong nodded, leaning forwards and pulling Johnny into a very fragile embrace. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

How long had Johnny been sitting here? Long enough for Taeyong to get on a plane, fly all the way back to Korea and then drive to the hospital. Was that long enough for Jungwoo to wake up? Had he woken up and wondered why Johnny wasn’t there to hold his hand? Had Johnny missed it?

“Hey,” Taeyong called softly, pulling back from the embrace and giving his best friend’s hands a grounding squeeze to return him to reality. “You’re in shock. You haven’t slept for over seventy-two hours. You need to lie down.”

No.

“I need to see him.”

God, when had his voice started to sound so gravelly?

“John, he’s not awake yet.”

That didn’t matter.

“Taeyong … I _need_ to see him.”

There was a very, very long pause, and Johnny could practically see the cogs of reluctance turning behind Taeyong’s eyes before he let out an exceedingly long and tired-sounding sigh and gave a defeated nod.

“Okay. Come on.”

Johnny was relieved to see that they’d taken the tube out of Jungwoo’s mouth. It almost made it easy enough to assume he was sleeping, swallowed up in that big white bed, with a fuzzy white hat on instead of a bandage.

They’d shaved his head. Johnny had known that. But it was still heart-wrenching and gut-wrenching all those other body-part-wrenching to see no trace of that sandy-coloured hair poking out from beneath the layers upon layers of gauze.

There was a sofa in the corner of the room that both Taeil and Donghyuck were curled up on, a tangle of limp limbs and slack jaws. Ten had taken one of the cushions and was using it as a pillow from where he was lying on the floor beside the couch, hands folded neatly over his stomach and head lolling to the side.

Doyoung, Jaehyun and Yuta weren’t there, had probably been sent home by Taeyong, but Mark and Yukhei were on either side of Jungwoo’s motionless body, holding one of his hands each and stroking their thumbs gently back and forth over the pale skin.

Mark had his head on the mattress, propped up in the crook of his elbow, and Johnny wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d fallen asleep, too, but Yukhei … There was clearly no chance of Yukhei ever sleeping again.

His face showed no signs of tears. His eyes weren’t red, his cheeks weren’t flushed, his lips weren’t colourless. He was just a blank slab, going through the motions of survival but not really living. Just sitting. And waiting.

Taeyong drew up two more chairs and Johnny practically fell into one, only realising just how tired he was now that he’d seen Jungwoo, Ten, Donghyuck, Taeil and Mark all with their eyes closed and their consciousnesses drifted around in whatever limbo had taken them.

Yukhei glanced up at the new arrival and, for a moment, Johnny thought he was about to get punched in the face.

He’d been the one who’d done this to Jungwoo in the first place. If he didn’t wake up, if he was any different to how he’d been before, that was his fault and he deserved to be punished for it.

But instead of unleashing hell upon the person who’d given the doctors the green light to mutilate his brother’s brain, Yukhei just gave a single nod and a very strained smile, reaching over Jungwoo’s body and giving Johnny’s hand the briefest squeeze before he returned to his motionless vigil.

It was about the most comforting gesture Johnny had ever received. Just knowing that Yukhei didn’t blame him, that Yukhei was actually thanking him for the making the decision he’d made, had him feeling like the sunlight was finally bursting through the clouds.

Taeyong was still standing, arms folded over his chest, eyes rallying slowly between his dongsaeng’s colourless face and the monitor beside the bed as he scanned the vital signs and heart rhythm until the differently coloured lights were burned into the backs of his eyelids.

Johnny couldn’t have imagined what it had been like for them. Having to fight the company until they were finally allowed to get on that plane, and then unable to do anything but sit in one of those chairs for hours and hours on end, completely out of contact with the rest of the world.

Jungwoo could have died while they were up in the air and they wouldn’t have known until they’d landed. What must it have felt like? Leaping off that plane, waiting for their phones to turn on and then frantically searching for any missed calls or unread messages that conveyed the worst news of their lives?

Johnny actually shuddered at the thought.

And then his entire world turned upside down.

It was Yukhei’s voice that alerted him. The soft whisper of “oh my God”, the increase in his breathing, the way his free hand immediately leapt to cup the side of Jungwoo’s face. That was what had them all looking and that was what had them all seeing the moment their boy’s eyelids started to flutter.

Mark’s head shot up from the bed, Taeyong slammed his hand against the call button, Ten scrambled off the floor and lurched forwards to rest his hands on Yukhei’s shoulders and stare, dumbstruck.

Taeil and Donghyuck didn’t stir but, then again, they must have been just as tired as Johnny and Johnny felt dead on his feet.

“Hi,” Yukhei breathed, one of those disbelieving grins stretching its way over his face. “Are you there?”

Jungwoo’s eyes were glazed and bloodshot, barely even visible beneath heavy, puffy lids. He blinked a couple of times, groggy and sluggish, sight roving around the room as though trying to take in every one of his surroundings.

And then his gaze met Yukhei’s.

And Johnny saw the moment.

“I see you,” he whispered hoarsely, his voice sounding like nails scratching sandpaper and yet somehow managing to be the most wondrous noise in the world. “I … I see you.”

He wasn’t blind anymore. His sight was back. He wasn’t blind anymore.

“I see you, too,” Yukhei nodded, tone cracking ever so slightly as he ran his thumb over the arc of Jungwoo’s eyebrow. “And I’m so, so, _so_ sorry.”

Jungwoo showed them the weakest and yet the happiest smile they’d ever seen him sport but there wasn’t time for any more verbal exchanges before the door opened and the doctor marched in, his coat billowing out behind him like the superhero he thought himself to be.

“Well, look who decided to join us,” he crowed, clearly feeling particularly arrogant now that his lost cause had turned into his most impressive one. “Do you know where you are, Jungwoo-ssi?”

Everybody was watching, holding their breaths, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for the crippling brain damage to present itself. Just because he’d smiled at them and said he could see Yukhei didn’t mean he knew who he was or even who they were.

But then, “Hospital?”

“That’s right,” the doctor nodded, pulling a penlight from his pocket and shining it in his patient’s eyes as the rest of them all deflated with relief. “Follow the finger.”

He did. It was the most incredible feeling to watch his pupils travelling backwards and forwards.

“It’s still blurry,” he rasped. “Really blurry.”

Johnny saw the way Yukhei’s fingers tightened around his hand as a mark of reassurance and, as a result, he also saw the way Jungwoo reciprocated the squeeze with a surprisingly strong one of his own.

“That’s okay,” the doctor nodded as he carefully drew the blankets away from Jungwoo’s body. “Your sight will probably take a few days to return completely. Can you feel this?”

He pushed the tip of his pen into the skin just above the patient’s left ankle, and there was a minute nod in return.

“And this?”

The same routine repeated itself with the other ankle and Johnny was starting to let himself believe – starting to let himself _hope_ – that maybe, just maybe, Jungwoo was okay. His sight was returning, he wasn’t paralysed, he knew where he was.

“Wiggle the toes on your left foot.”

Oh. Oh … Oh, fuck.

Both Ten and Mark immediately turned to the doctor, eyes wide and pleading, Taeyong’s brow knotted itself in the centre of his forehead, Yukhei breathed in sharply, and Johnny felt his stomach beginning to slither downwards.

“I said your left foot, Jungwoo-ssi.”

“That was my left foot.”

No. No, it wasn’t. It was his right foot.

“Okay,” the doctor murmured, slotting his pen back into his pocket and batting Yukhei’s hand aside so he could take a grip on both his patient’s. “Squeeze with your right hand.”

Johnny held his breath and felt it slipping free in one, horrified motion when he saw Jungwoo’s fingers flexing. The fingers on his left hand.

“What’s wrong?” the boy whispered, the smile now gone from his face at the feeling of fear that settled around him. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, hyung,” Mark started to say, but Yukhei cut him off almost immediately.

“Don’t lie to him. He … Don’t lie to him. What’s happening?”

All attention was now on the doctor, every face pale, every set of eyes burning for answers, pleading for them. For why Jungwoo’s coordination was all wrong. For why he was moving his right side when they told him to move his left.

And Johnny just knew that he’d done this even before they got their explanation and Jungwoo’s eyes got a little dimmer and Taeyong’s chin dropped onto his chest and the doctor finally left them alone with their brother.

Their brain damaged brother.

And Johnny couldn’t bear it.

There were still further tests to be done as a confirmation process but the doctor was fairly certain that the area of Jungwoo’s brain called the angular gyrus, found somewhere in the parietal lobe, had started to bleed during the surgery.

As a result, he was now the unwilling owner of an exceedingly rare neurological disorder named Gerstmann Syndrome. In other words, he couldn’t differentiate between his own fingers, he couldn’t perform simple mathematical equations and he couldn’t tell his left from his right.

He could undergo physical therapy and enter an outpatient programme that would help him re-learn everything he’d forgotten but, essentially, his symptoms were permanent.

And Johnny had done that.

“I’m so sorry,” he told Jungwoo once Taeyong had finally managed to convince everybody else to go home. Well, everybody except Yukhei who was currently passed out on the sofa. “I’m so, so sorry, Woo. I … I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t know what else he could say. He had made that decision without a second thought, signed those papers like it was just another day at the office, and it had mutilated his dongsaeng’s mind.

Taeyong had refused to allow him to blame himself, had stated resolutely and irrevocably that he was the one who had given the order and therefore he was the one who should take responsibility for what had happened but that didn’t matter to Johnny.

It was his signature on those papers. His hand that had given the signal. His command. His almighty fuck up.

“Hyung,” Jungwoo whispered, his voice still scratchy and broken and his face still paler than the pillow his bandaged head rested on. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” Johnny rebuked, shaking his head and slamming his fist into his thigh as though he could punish himself for what he’d done. “I thought I was saving your life but, instead, I …”

“You did save my life,” Jungwoo interrupted and, finally, his ghostly gurgles got through. “If you hadn’t consented on my behalf, I’d be dead now. But, because of you, I get to live. So … It’s okay.”

No. He didn’t deserve forgiveness that easily. He deserved to be hated, resented, screamed at, shunned, kicked out of the dorm and told never to return again. So why wasn’t Jungwoo doing that?

“I’ll tell you what I told Yukhei,” Jungwoo continued, shuffling slightly against his pillows and giving Johnny’s hand a gently scolding squeeze.

“I just had a pretty major vibe check from God and that means all arguments, all grudges, all misunderstandings are now null and void. So what if I can’t tell my right from my left? It’s not like I’m ever going to become a surgeon, is it? It doesn’t matter. And as for the maths part … I’ve always sucked at that subject. I wouldn’t be surprised if they mistook my natural ability for a symptom.”

Johnny just blinked at him. Even now, even after everything he’d been through, he was still smiling. And maybe what he was saying was right. Gerstmann Syndrome be damned, he was still the same person.

He was still Jungwoo.

“Okay, hyung?”

Johnny didn’t realise it but, out of nowhere, he was chuckling and, once he’d started, he couldn’t bring himself to stop. He was so tired and so hungry and so run down.

He’d watched Yukhei begging for forgiveness on his knees, clinging to Jungwoo’s hand and sobbing apologies until he’d finally cried himself to sleep. He’d thought he’d needed to do the same but maybe not. Maybe … Maybe it was …

“Okay.”

“Good,” Jungwoo nodded, allowing his eyes to flutter closed. “Now go home and sleep.”

“Yes, sir,” Johnny grinned, rising from his chair and stooping to press a kiss against his baby’s forehead. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Jungwoo gave a contented sigh as Johnny slowly padded over to the door, keeping his footsteps light so as not to wake Yukhei, but as he reached the threshold, he stopped, he paused and then glanced over his shoulder.

“Vibe check from God?”

“You couldn’t let me have this, could you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much xx

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments really help with my motivation and confidence so, if you have a spare minute, let me know what you think! Have a good day and everybody stay safe!


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